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Try getting your returns after the tax season. You can't. So if you print out copies but they are lost/destroyed, you're basically fucked. Happened to me this last year.. now I'm going to get to re-file Federal. Fortunately I don't owe anything.


I use this to get a copy every year.

If you understand the tax code thoroughly, you're going to easily know exactly which forms to fill out in a specific year. And you would be an accountant, not a programmer.

I know the tax codes thoroughly, and I'm a professional tax preparer and programmer.

Coincidentally, I don't mean this post to be deragotary towards Open Source people, but am I wrong that no one is going to start a project for code that he himself isn't going to use?

I started one a few years ago, when I had a lot more time on my hands (of course my intention was to be able to use it, but as it turns out I just buy my e-file software for now, it's cheaper than writing the software myself). I abandoned it, largely because I suck at writing GUIs (it was basically my first attempt at using GTK). If a few people want to help me try again, I'm sure we could get something done in time for 2005s taxes (even if it's just the 1040-EZ, it'll generate enough interest to move forward). The specs are out there, but the work is tedious. If you're in, contact me at taxman@inbox.org.

If you understand the tax code thoroughly, you're going to easily know exactly which forms to fill out in a specific year. And you would be an accountant, not a programmer.

I know the tax codes thoroughly, and I'm a professional tax preparer and programmer.

Coincidentally, I don't mean this post to be deragotary towards Open Source people, but am I wrong that no one is going to start a project for code that he himself isn't going to use?

I started one a few years ago, when I had a lot more time on my hands (of course my intention was to be able to use it, but as it turns out I just buy my e-file software for now, it's cheaper than writing the software myself). I abandoned it, largely because I suck at writing GUIs (it was basically my first attempt at using GTK). If a few people want to help me try again, I'm sure we could get something done in time for 2005s taxes (even if it's just the 1040-EZ, it'll generate enough interest to move forward). The specs are out there, but the work is tedious. If you're in, contact me at taxman@inbox.org.

If you understand the tax code thoroughly, you're going to easily know exactly which forms to fill out in a specific year. And you would be an accountant, not a programmer.

I know the tax codes thoroughly, and I'm a professional tax preparer and programmer.

Coincidentally, I don't mean this post to be deragotary towards Open Source people, but am I wrong that no one is going to start a project for code that he himself isn't going to use?

I started one a few years ago, when I had a lot more time on my hands (of course my intention was to be able to use it, but as it turns out I just buy my e-file software for now, it's cheaper than writing the software myself). I abandoned it, largely because I suck at writing GUIs (it was basically my first attempt at using GTK). If a few people want to help me try again, I'm sure we could get something done in time for 2005s taxes (even if it's just the 1040-EZ, it'll generate enough interest to move forward). The specs are out there, but the work is tedious. If you're in, contact me at taxman@inbox.org.

They pay ahem ... "subscription charges" for the documentation and specifications, the tax accounting software companies get to call their software "fully IR/IRS compliant".

Wrong. You can download all the specs for free, and then if you submit your fingerprints and pass their tests, you yourself can become an official e-services provider. I even signed up as a software provider and got approved for testing, but I never finished the product. You want a free/open source tax program? Write one.

However, why in the name of all that's Holy don't you US folks have state-controlled tax returns yet?

We don't like state-controlled anything.

However, most people's taxes require information that the government simply doesn't have. So you fill out your taxes to claim deductions, etc. This is where the taxes get really complicated. The government just doesn't know if you use your SUV (big car) for business, or if your employer made you buy it, or if it's electric or not. They don't know how many square feet you use for business in your home, or how much income you got as cash for a side business, etc. This is all information you can report on your tax returns to lower your tax (or to raise it and avoid penalties if you happen to be audited).

It is possible to have the government do your taxes if you don't fall into that category, however. You just basically fill out your name and a couple other things and mail it in. Very few people do this however. Even the people that could do it probably don't trust the government enough anyway.

Here in Ireland (and in the rest of the EU) your tax is automatically taken out of your paycheck and you don't need to worry about filling in tax returns every year unless you run a business.

Yes, that happens here too. (Actually I'm self-employed so I pay quarterly tax payments instead, but it's similar in spirit). Then at the end of the year you figure out if the government owes you or if you owe them by fiddling all these little details.

not the price plus 10-20% sales tax. How do you guys put up with that?

Different states have different sales tax. So probably companies prefer to have their products advertised at the "base" price before taxes.

What do you Americans think?

The US tax system is okay, but very complicated. That's because 1) there are lots of special interests tinkering with it and 2) every special interest that wants to add a bonus or penalty for certain behavior has to be sure that it doesn't add any loopholes.

Example that gave me some headaches last year (yes I do my own taxes by hand):

The president says "corporate dividends shouldn't be taxed". Okay cool. Fine with me. Companies pay tax on their income, and then WE pay tax on our dividends, so they are "taxed twice". (Unless they are received in a retirement account.)

The logical thing to do is to eliminate the tax AT THE CORPORATION. However this isn't "politically correct" because it seems to favor corporations (economically it doesn't matter). So they lower them at the taxpayer end. Lower taxes on dividends! Yay!

No, not really. Because some corporations don't pay taxes on dividends to begin with!!! For example, REITs (a type of real estate operating company). In exchange for paying out most of their cash flow as dividends, REITs pay no taxes (this was done in the sixties or so to encourage real estate investment).

So the IRS still taxes REIT dividends. They created two classes: qualified (lower tax) and non-qualified (old tax). And they came up with some crazy date-based rules to make sure you held the instrument for the right amount of time. here's a link. They actually screwed up the holding period rules because they are so complicated and had to quickly amend them.

So what's my point? That every change you make to the taxes requires detailed rules to make sure that there are no loopholes. And then new changes have to take all the other changes into account...etc.. And whenever somebody says something that sounds like it makes things simpler, it really ends up making things more complicated.

I'm not sure how you could 1) eliminate the complexity of filling out forms and 2) still have a system of rewards and penalties. For instance to give people a tax break on tsunami disaster relief, next year our tax forms will have a special space for tsunami relief donat

Four years ago I bought a Jackson Hewitt tax franchise as a hedge against the day when I'm too old to program. I'm 52, work full time as a C++ programmer, and haven't been laid off yet!

I'm not sure about H&R, but as part of our basic price we promise to pay any interest and penalities that occur if we make a mistake. In addition, for a small charge the client can extend that coverage to include up to $5000 in additional taxes that might be levied.

Tax filings are the taxpayers responsiblity even if God himself prepared the return. I'm sure a CPA prepared Al Capone's return, but Big Al is the one who went to jail.

You will notice that H&RB (and Hewitt, et al.) will call themselves "Certified Tax Preparers" or some such nonsense.

I pass a difficult exam (based on the tax portion of the CPA exam)in order to qualify as an Enrolled Agent which gives me the right to represent clients in audits and in tax court on identical basis as attorneys and CPAs. Of course EA have identical responsibilities with our attorney and CPA friends. See IRS circular 230.

Most Jackson Hewitts have an EA or CPA available to represent client in audits.

All you folks doing the free returns, when you get the letter from the IRS this summer let me help you get amend your return to get you out of trouble.

though, haveing not actually read all of the documentation, the IRS want's this to be easy...
take a look at http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118575,00.h tml apropriately titled "e-file for Software Developers/Transmitters"

maybe someone with some more time, and experiance than I should take a crack at it

Your numbers are completely bogus. The IRS annual budget is about $10 billion. The whole government spends trillions each year, and falls short hundreds of billions each year. Really, the IRS is tiny in comparison, and is the only branch of government all of us deal with every year. What innumerate right-wing publications do you get your propaganda from?

I think I remember reading that about half of the revenue that the IRS takes in is used in IRS overhead.

That's the most ridiculous assertion I've ever heard. You mean that half of corporate and personal tax funds the IRS? Hogwash. The IRS's annual budget is roughly $10 Billion.

The IRS does a fairly good job of what they are supposed to do: Collect the taxes that *CONGRESS* levies, and the *PRESIDENT* signs into law. It's not THEIR fault.

Did you know that the IRS is prohibited from offering online filing services themselves for free? That's right, H&R Block and friends lobbied your government to tie the hands of the IRS so that they can't give you good, free service which would mess with their bottom line.

The IRS is no angel, but blaming them for taxes and the complicated nature of tax law is shooting the messenger.

For users of Adobe Reader: beginning October 25, 2004 new fill-in forms will be enabled with "document rights" which will allow you to save what you have filled in on your PC. Version 5.1 or later of Adobe Reader is required. When the form is opened, a "document rights" message box will be displayed if this feature is available.

For users of Adobe Reader: beginning October 25, 2004 new fill-in forms will be enabled with "document rights" which will allow you to save what you have filled in on your PC. Version 5.1 or later of Adobe Reader is required. When the form is opened, a "document rights" message box will be displayed if this feature is available.

Lots of folks are eligilbe for free filing using web based tools. It was quick and easy for me last year.

http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.h tml

I forgot where I read it, but on the 14th on the http://www.irs.gov/ they will post a full list of where you can file an electronic return for free.

Or the official IRS (not just intuit) http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.h tml

The IRS has a Free File program that a number of companies provide assuming you don't have any "special cases", that is to say, can use the basic 1040 -- don't own a business, take standard deduction, etc. I've found (whodathunkit) H&R Block's Free File program to be quite good. I did my taxes in my lunchbreak and got my refund the next week.

This is no different. W-4 employment is a sham. No business would ever depend on a similar agreement for anything, especially anything upon which revenue depends. W-4 employment is unfair and obsolete, and layoffs like these are cruel, groundless and destructive.

Say what you want about the "employment at will" system but what's your beef with Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate? :)

However, in all of the "we'll bring you on as a contractor temp-to-perm" cases that I have seen, you'll be hired through a temp agency. Basically, you are a full-time (or part-time) emnployee of the agency (Manpower, etc.), and the agency is a contractor of the employer. This way you need worry about none of the extra taxes / paperwork. You just cash checks, as a regular employee does (some of the agencies even offer benefits). The tradeoff is that the agency skims off of every hour (sometimes by a rather large amount).

This is usually because, if a company hires "independent contractors" that do the same work in the same way as employees, the IRS tends to frown upon that. I had to do some work for a certain business machines company where I used to work full-time, and I had to get a temp agency because they don't deal in IC's for these reasons. (Boy, was it fun to convince the pimp to take me. "Look, you get to make money on every hour, and you didn't even have to hook me up with the job! I know they don't have a posting. Trust me, they already asked me, and nobody else in the world can do this job without a lot of training. Dammit, just talk to the manager!")

One way to resolve the issue is to ask the employer to fill out IRS Form SS-8", "Determination of Worker Status for purposes of Federal Employment Taxes and Income Tax Witholding." Workers can also fill out the form directly. This initiates a process at the IRS in which the IRS sends forms to both sides and eventually issues a letter opinion resolving the issue.

If an employer proposes that you should be an "independent contractor", but it's really a job (they tell you when and where to work and how to do the job), this is a useful form to show them. It scares HR departments and their lawyers. If the IRS decides that a class of "independent contractors" is in fact employees, the employer has to pay back employment taxes. The IRS tends to view anything that looks like a job as a job, regardless of what the employer says.

If you've been an "independent contractor" recently but no longer have a connection to that company, you can file an SS-8 form, and may save some money on taxes if you're retroactively reclassified as an employee.

It's no secret that lots of businesses like to unfairly take advantage of employees by calling them "independent contractors." I've worked for several bosses who have done just that.

The problem is that unless you're a principal or spend ridiculous amounts of money on work expenses, it's almost impossible to ever come up with enough dough to cover the 40% of your salary that you're going to lose in self-employment tax, let alone surpass the standard deduction.

The IRS has a pretty good outline of how to properly differentiate between employees and contractors (under the IRC) here.

Also, take a look at this PDF form from the IRS. It has the same series of questions, and can be filed with the IRS for a determination (even after the fact) if you should have been counted as an IC or employee for tax purposes. They can then demand that an employer pay the proper amount of your taxes, and give you a refund for what you've (improperly) paid.

There's a three year statute of limitations on filing the SS-8 form with the IRS, though, so just be aware. It's all on the 4th and 5th pages of the form.

Disclaimer: None of this is legal advice. Tax laws are weird and very fact-specific. If you need a solid answer, ask a qualified attorney or accountant or something. You could even ask Dave Barry. He has a blog.

It's no secret that lots of businesses like to unfairly take advantage of employees by calling them "independent contractors." I've worked for several bosses who have done just that.

The problem is that unless you're a principal or spend ridiculous amounts of money on work expenses, it's almost impossible to ever come up with enough dough to cover the 40% of your salary that you're going to lose in self-employment tax, let alone surpass the standard deduction.

The IRS has a pretty good outline of how to properly differentiate between employees and contractors (under the IRC) here.

Also, take a look at this PDF form from the IRS. It has the same series of questions, and can be filed with the IRS for a determination (even after the fact) if you should have been counted as an IC or employee for tax purposes. They can then demand that an employer pay the proper amount of your taxes, and give you a refund for what you've (improperly) paid.

There's a three year statute of limitations on filing the SS-8 form with the IRS, though, so just be aware. It's all on the 4th and 5th pages of the form.

Disclaimer: None of this is legal advice. Tax laws are weird and very fact-specific. If you need a solid answer, ask a qualified attorney or accountant or something. You could even ask Dave Barry. He has a blog.

[T]hey calculated from the movement of the seven stars that they must be orbiting an intermediate-mass black hole, called IRS 13E, which spirals around Sagittarius A* at about 280 kilometres per second.

Is it just serendipity that this object, into which everything goes and never comes back, is named after an Earthly agency to which similar attributes are often ascribed?

If you're the government, that's also just fine: less chance of Joe Sixpack retiring early on a long-term capital gain

And just to add another data point, my employer grants options to about 30% of all employees each year based on individual performance. The number of options vary based on your position and performance level. Since the economy has improved, they've also started offering cash bonuses again to go along with the options. As with options, cash bonuses vary based on position and job performance.

-Calculate your share of the National Deficit
You owe $25,286.35
per person in your family that includes infants, and the elderly.
Payments may be sent Directly to TYour Local IRS office

According the IRS website, it is "transactions", and not deposits or withdrawals. See this.

Really? I wish I lived in the rosy world you lived in where "everyone" is affected by the estate tax. Personally, I don't know a single person who has an estate worth more than $1.5M (the 2004 exemption level).

The fact is, the estate tax affects the wealthiest 2% of Americans. That is a info from... the IRS:

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id= 108143,00.html

So... quit your whiny sniveling, you greedy cretin.

So, your statement that cutting taxes increases government income is STILL shown to be incorrect from data in 2002 and 2003.

No its not because you are making the assumptions that you can not prove true. The Reagan data clearly shows an increase in government income. You assume that if the Bush tax cuts had not happened that government income would have at least remained steady, this is easily proved to be a false assumption.

From Calendar Year Projections for the United States and IRS Centers 2003 - 2010

In what is a rare development, partial year data for late summer indicated that return filing
volumes in CY 2003 will be lower than those for 2002 for individual income tax returns. Such year-to-year declines in filing volumes have only occurred a few times over the past three decades. We attribute this most recent occurrence to two factors, filing extensions to military personnel overseas, and slow growth in the U.S. economy in 2002.

Data indicate that individual income tax returns received in 2003 will be about 283,000 returns less than the number received in 2002. We believe that the special filing extension granted to our military forces in the Persian Gulf and related war zones is contributing to fewer tax returns filed this year. However, the main cause of the expected drop in individual tax return filings in 2003 is the drop in employment in both 2001 and 2002. Less people employed means fewer people required to file tax returns. However, the recent increase in economic growth and projections for higher growth in the future, will translate into projections for future growth in return filings.

And as such my argument is that the tax cuts, in this case, saved the economy from a further downhill slide.

How many YEARS are you going to hide behind that attack?

Flip-flop Alert: You tell me is the economy improving or not? You can't in one breath tell me how bad the economy is and in the next ask me why tax revenues fell. I take that back you can but in doing so you negate your own argument.

With NO jump up.

Really I haven't seen the actual numbers for the 04 returns yet, have you? I have seen the projections and they say that there will be an increase. How does your argument hold up to that?

No. Stay on your original topic. Tax cuts increase governmental income. Yet the numbers do NOT show that happening. In fact, the CONTINUING trend is over 30x WORSE than with Ronnie.

I'm not the one off topic and looking for micro trends to prove my point. The overall Macro trend from 1980 to today does show a "CONTINUING trend" in government income not the "3X" decrease you site but instead a 4X increase.

There are lots of brutal dictators in the world. When are we going to start invading half of Africa? How about North Korea? I can't wait! Or do we only care about people oppressed in resource-rich nations?

Lets see is todays argument that we don't have enough troops or that we should be saving the whole world at once? ( What is the sound of one flip-flop flopping :-)

Do you honestly believe that China will allow N. Korea to get nukes? If we follow your argument we have not invaded NK because they are not "resource-rich", I'll agree with you that they have very little in the way of natural resources, So where do you think NK will go to get resources if they were to acquire nukes? Several thousand miles over open ocean or right next door in China and Russia?

Also, I don't recall anything about "brutal dictators" or oppressed people in the case made for war.

Maybe you should have removed your head from your ass and checked out a few different news sources. Lord knows your head might explode if you attempted to listen to anything other than Air America. But perhaps you read The New York Times once before. Allow me to quote for you from Febuary 25th 2003:

Saddam Hussein has dragged his people into at least two wars. He has used chemical weapons on them. He has killed hundreds of thousands of people and tortured and oppressed countless others. So why, in all of these demonstrations, did I not see one single banner or hear one speech calling for the end of human rights abuses in Iraq, the removal of the dictator and freedom for the Iraqis and the Kurdish people? If we are going to demonstrate and exert pressure, shouldn't it be focused on the real villain, with the goal of getting him to surrender his weapons of mass destruction and resign from power? To neglect this reality, in favor of simplistic and irrational anti-Americanism, is obfuscating the true debate on war and peace.

Theres plenty more where that came from.

Yeah that seems to have put a real dent in things. Since terrorist acts of violence have actually increased by ... A LOT ... since Sep 11, 2001.

Please site your source for this! While your at it please site historical evidence that would even begin to make the case that terrorism would decrease if we had allowed the attacks of 9/11 to go unchallenged!

Perhaps if hadn't left the job of pursuing Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban to the Pakistanis so we could invade/occupy Iraq, then they wouldn't be gathering strength in Afghanistan again as we speak.

Theres that damn flip-flop sound again...anyway which is it, we shouldn't be fighting terrorism alone or we should do this ourselves?

Sell out everything in the long-term in exchange for $400 more a year. Who cares if we are ALREADY IN A FUCKING DEFICIT AND EXPENSIVE WAR so that our children will end up paying for your sorry-ass tax cut and they'll get no benefit from it. But who cares! Short-term benefits for ME!

So lets raise taxes to 100% and pay off all government dept? Then we can setup a big government office to redistribute the the money back to those that "need it". I'll tell you what man I can't wait those bread lines look like a real hoot!!!

Could it be that when you cut taxes the amount of money moving in economy increases and therefor the government income actually increases. And before you spout off how theres no evidence to support that please review the IRS Internal Revenue Gross Collections, by Type of Tax, Fiscal Years 1973-2003 which clearly shows that government income doubled in during the 80's and the Reagan Tax cuts.

What is moral...prescription medicine...higher bills than any other indust

As of the 2000 census, the average American makes $57,045. An American making $75,000 a year falls into the top 1/4 of Americans, income-wise.

Thus, a (comparatively well-to-do) American making $75,000 a year would probably be expected to pay a fairly hefty tax rate, say 30-35%. It'd keep you from buying a lot of nifty toys, and you'll probably need to settle on a humbler house than you'd otherwise want, but it's not really not that hard a price to pay.

Echoing the other reply to your post in some respects, but are you a communist? Why should the wealthy pay a higher percentage than anyone else? Do you want to see a situation where no matter what anyone does for a living, they take home $x and that is it? Why would anyone bother to go to school for years on end to learn when they will get no reward besides a pat on the back and "good job" for making sure every high school drop out gets money for menial work?

I get so sick of hearing politicians (and from you post, it sounds like you as well) complain that the "wealthy" are not taxed enough. According to the 2002 statistics (latest available I stumbled across at www.irs.org) people making $50k and over (their breakdowns) paid 86.4% (data from here of the received income tax! Is that not a high enough percentage for you given that by your numbers, that should represent just over 50% of the population. Heck, lets go even further, the people making over $100k (by your numbers we should now be well under 25% of the population) paid 61.7% of the tax burden! Is that not heavy enough? Come on man, look at some numbers, realize we live in a capitalistic society, and lay off the "wealthy need to pay more" crap, by your standards, I (my wife and I make over $57k combined) already am pitching in way more than my fair share.

...and tax revenues--surprise!--lowered also

Bzzz wrong answer, but thanks for playing the "lets make up data game"... I like to rely on more useful data like say the IRS Internal Revenue Gross Collections, by Type of Tax, Fiscal Years 1973-2003 which clearly shows that tax revenue doubled from 1980 to 1989!

...but no (or incredibly few) serious economists believe that reducing marginal tax rates increases tax revenue.

Believe as they might the data shows otherwise.

This guy is an idiot. The Sixteenth Amendment gives the IRS authority:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

If that's not enough this pdf clearly outlines where the IRS gets it's authority and why US citizens must pay income tax.

Corps paid 194B in taxes in 2003, 1040's paid 1.6T. (I believe the "corporation" column includes 1120's and 1065's).

We have a system that generally pushes the direct tax burden onto individuals, but many corps shoulder a portion of the tax burden.

source
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/03db06co.xls (xls document)

I touched on alternative currencies, a concept which is tangential to my experiment, in an earlier entry. If you're intrigued by that sort of thing, you'll probably be interested in this interview with Bernard Lietaer. He discusses several alternative or complementary currency systems in use worldwide. He also claims that something called the time-dollar that is being used in the U.S. has been ruled tax-free by the IRS, something that I would want to see documented before I'd believe it, since the feds aren't usually so kind to barter or mediated-barter arrangements.

Well, thanks to google, the documentation is at hand. "Why the Taxman didn't come" explains the background of the ruling and its limitations, and a Time Dollar FAQ goes into more detail, but I wasn't able to find anything on the Internal Revenue Service website.

Then you'd both owe gift taxes for the fair market value of the CD.

Well, in 2002, the exception for gift taxes was $11000.
Also, consider that the fair market value of a CD is significantly less than the new price of the CD once you unwrap it. You would be lucky to get $5 selling it to a used record store. So you would have to be giving an awful lot of CDs for this to actually cause you any tax burden.

Also, gift taxes do not apply if you exchange it for an item of equal value, so if you trade CDs then it doesn't count, and doesn't count when you trade them back.

Read about gift taxes here.

Do you know the last time those numbers were updated? I'm not disagreeing with your arguments; it's just the numbers I've seen from the IRS recently are a bit different. Single individuals making from 29,050 to 70,350 are paying 4K + 25% of earnings above 29,050. See the tax imposed breakdown from the IRS for confirmation, as well as for other brackets and groups.

Hack the real enemy instead!

Unemployment is below 6% Under Clinton, that was considered full employment. In the Bush world it's a shambles?

http://data.bls.gov/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?da ta_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000

Extreme upper class? you mean a family of four making $40,000 or more per year?

http://www.irs.gov/formspubs/article/0,,id=109876, 00.html#tax_rates_2003

You want to see brainwashed, look in the mirror. Better yet, EDUCATE YOURSELF by doing your own research and not listening to the talking heads that have an agenda. The fact are out there. Look them up. Not only will you learn something, you might even draw some conclusions that will surprise you.

If all of the combined taxes burdening my income (around 50%, when all is said and done) were swept away, I'd agree with you, 100%. However, governments at all levels leech off of most everyone's income for 20-to-40 years. The least those governments can do for people is pay their medical bills when they're old and gray.

You say the average health cost of a crippled, elderly person would far exceed the average person's contributions over their lifetime? I heartily agree! But I have no sympathy because it's mostly due to governent meddling that medical care is so bloody high to begin with.

No matter. I'm personally getting out of the system, this rat race. I don't bank on my social security being enough when my time arrives in 34.5 years. I'm mostly out of debt, I've got some remote property, and I'm gonna cash in my retirement fund after I quit my job to pay off everything I own. Then I'll work a part-time telecommutuing job -- juuuuust enough to earn the maximum amount of money to earn the maximum amount of Earned Income Tax Credit (at least for the remaining 12 years my kids will be at home). For once, my lovely government will be paying me $4k/yr to sit on my ass. :) When you don't owe a dime to anyone (save small property taxes and car registration), the max annual adjusted income $13,750 to earn the maximum of $4,204 can go a looong way. Hell, that's a 30% raise just for breathing! Go see for yourself (page 41).

Yeah, this offends my sensibilities, too. However, it seems like a healthy payback for the 16 years of employment that I've been getting fleeced. Newspeak can be true -- in this case, less is indeed more.

According to this, not much revenue has been lost in the past few years (and it's at roughly twice what it was ten years ago (I wonder how closely this correlates to the GDP)).

But as to the rest of your statement, why yes, that is exactly what that's like. No argument from me on that one.

I would include a nice table showing everything for the lazy, but since stupid /. prevents that. How about this: over the last forty years, the Corporate Income Tax provided the following percentages of that years IRS collections:

in 2003, 10%
in 1993, 11.18%
in 1983, 9.85%
in 1973, 16.42%

As you can see, the percentages have held fairly steady over recent years, including "the last half-decade" (nice try, Bush hater). The big change in percentages happened back at the end of the 70's.

"+5 Interesting" my sweet fanny!

From IRS

Individual's income tax: 987,209 million (81%)
Corporation's income tax: 194,146 million (19%)

yeah I laughed at the *similiar culture* but. US and Canada are like chalk and cheese. Candians being a commonwealth county have more akin to New Zealanders and Australians than Americans.

But when it comes to business I dont think neither the accent nor the culture would really get in the way. Though you may have some fun calling them *bloody wankers* and them calling back *freekin shute*.

Though I do have suspicions outsourcing may not get a foothold in Canada and may explain why outsourcing to cheaper countries is (to use that awful business phrase) gaining traction.

All through the 90's corporations have looked at ways of minimising taxes (Frontline ~ ~ Tax me if you can ~ feb 19, 2003) through leasing utilities akin to reducing costs as they did through downsizing. The concept relies on paying for recycling/rinsing money through foreign countries by leasing drains, trains and the like. Now the US tax authorities (IRS) have cottened onto these schemes. Could coding (an expensive reoccuring cost) in low wage third world countries be another attempt to avoid such taxes to improve profit?

501(c)3 organizations are required to file IRS Form 990, 'Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax', if the organziation's gross receipts are over $25,000 per year.
Form 990 will include functional expenses, a balance sheet and the salaries of board members and key employees. There is a great primer on how to read a Form 990 here.
Any 501(c)3 should be able to provide you a copy of their latest Form 990, and the IRS should also have a copy. Going those routes may be a bit arduous, so you can also use Guidestar, an organization that focuses on "...on facilitating access to information about the operations and finances of nonprofit organizations."

Full disclosure: I work for an environmental non-profit.

The key difference is that a non-profit doesn't have "owners" and therefore there's nowhere to send a dividend. When a non-profit makes more income than it's spending, they either have to spend more on whatever they do, or put the money in the bank for a rainy day.

The IRS 501(c)(3) standard takes that definition a bit further to require that the non-profit must be doing something for the public good, rather than just giving money to the people who set it up. Here's the IRS.gov page on the matter.

this allows corporations as well to donate and take the write-off.

this is big since it makes the foundation significantly more likely to recieve large donations.

IRS Tax Information for Charitable Organizations

Deductions subject to the 2% limit are discussed in the three categories in which you report them on Schedule A:

* Unreimbursed employee expenses (line 20).

It's a misc. itemized deduction -- which requires that you itemize (of course), and that they exceed 2% of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI).

The only other requirement is that the product or service be "helpful, but not necessarily essential" to your occupation. There are certain specific exclusions like airline lounges, etc. but otherwise it's mostly anything that fits the broad outline of "helpful".

It's all on Schedule A

Here are the instructions for the Schedule A form.

It's a misc. itemized deduction -- which requires that you itemize (of course), and that they exceed 2% of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI).

The only other requirement is that the product or service be "helpful, but not necessarily essential" to your occupation. There are certain specific exclusions like airline lounges, etc. but otherwise it's mostly anything that fits the broad outline of "helpful".

It's all on Schedule A

Here are the instructions for the Schedule A form.

Check here. Not everything is -- some things are. And when you hover around two tax brackets, writting off even a little can save you a lot.

According to the IRS, you can deduct the equipment costs for a computer that you purchased as a condition of employment. My suspicion is that you can tax-deduct a wide variety of such expenses, though only your accountant knows for sure. I personally do not allow my personal equipment to ever be used for business purposes unless I am shown a guaranteed compensation schedule for it.